1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an improvement of a welding method in which a wire and a plate, or a pair of wires are welded together with a laser beam, and a fixing jig employed in the method.
2. Background
A method of welding a wire to a plate with a laser beam is known in the art. For example, Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 107786/1984 (the term "OPI" as used herein means an "unexamined application") discloses a thin wire welding method, illustrated in FIGS. 8 and 9. In the disclosed method, the end portion of a flat plate a is bent to form an upstanding leg portion b (hereinafter referred to as "a bent piece", when applicable), and a thin wire c is welded to the plate by application of a laser beam d. According to the JPA application, the thin wire c and the bent piece b are satisfactorily welded together when the height h.sub.2 of the bent piece b of the flat plate a is 0.4 to 1.0 times greater that the diameter h.sub.1 of the thin wire c.
However, in the above method a problem occurs in that it is difficult to bridge the thin wire c and the bent piece b of the flat plate a with a sufficient amount of molten metal, and accordingly the resultant weld is not sufficiently high in mechanical strength.